Emotional Wellbeing and Life Satisfaction of Singles and Mated People Across 12 Nations

Evolutionary Psychological Science. 2024. Vol. 10. No. 4. P. 352–369.

Apostolou M., Sullman M., Błachnio A., Burýšek O., Bushina E., Сalvo F., Costello W., Helmy M., Hill T., Karageorgiou M. G., Lisun Y., Manrique‑Millones D., Manrique‑Pino O., Ohtsubo Y., Przepiórka A., Saar O. C., Tekeş B., Thomas A., Wang Y., Font‑Mayolas S.

The increasing occurrence of singlehood raises the question of whether people enjoy greater emotional wellbeing aloneor in an intimate relationship. Guided by an evolutionary theoretical framework of human emotions, the current researchaimed to address whether individuals are emotionally better off single than in an intimate relationship, taking a cross-culturalperspective. The quality of the relationship is also crucial; thus, the study also aimed to determine whether individuals in agood or bad intimate relationship differ from each other and from those who are single in terms of emotional wellbeing. In asample of 6338 participants from 12 nations, we found that singles experienced lower emotional wellbeing and life satisfac-tion than those in relationships. More specifically, participants who were in a relationship or married reported the highestlife satisfaction and emotional wellbeing, while those involuntarily single reported the lowest levels, with individuals whoare between relationships or voluntarily single reporting intermediate levels. Additionally, participants in a good relation-ship experienced higher emotional wellbeing and life satisfaction than those in a bad relationship. The findings among theinvoluntarily single participants were similarly negative, but to a lesser extent than those in a bad relationship. These resultswere consistent across the different nations in our sample.
 

Keywords: meaning in life, Life satisfaction, Singlehood, Emotional Wellbeing, Involuntary Singlehood, Emotions, Optimism